Many users have a smartphone and/or tablet that utilizes applications that are hosted by an application store. The application store may host a variety of content such as applications, music, movies, and electronic books. The content may be provided to a client-computing device belonging to an end user. The number of applications available on an application store may number in the millions with potentially thousands of new applications or updated applications publishing daily. Most users, however, typically have only a handful of installed applications that they use regularly. Installed applications may refer to those applications that a user elected to install on the user's computing device as compared to those applications that were already installed on the stock device when the user purchased it (e.g., operating system applications, manufacturer applications, mobile or wireless provider applications, etc.).
A user who has installed an application on a client device may not attempt to test other applications that may better suit the user's needs because continuously searching for a different application can be difficult and time consuming. For example, the user may not be informed when a new application is available. Further, the user may be reluctant to test other applications because the user's data is associated with the already-installed application. Further, it may be difficult for the user to locate and/or determine which alternative applications to try out.
An application store or third party typically attempts to address the above-mentioned issues by generating recommendation charts (e.g., a top 10 list, most popular ranking, similar applications, etc.) that can be personalized based on an end user. Such techniques may not be effective because a user may not locate the optimal alternative application among the recommended list. For example, the user may test only the first few applications on a top 10 list and, after not finding the desired feature in one of those few applications, abandon the search for an alternative application. The user also may determine, based on this brief trial, that no alternative application contains the feature the user desires and permanently abandon the search therefor.